In context: Developer Build A Rocket Boy and publisher IO Interactive positioned their genre-bending sci-fi shooter MindsEye as the next big blockbuster of 2025. Instead, it’s breaking blocks in ways no one expected. Mission-breaking bugs and crippling glitches made the game nearly unplayable.

MindsEye launched Tuesday with high hopes – and fell apart within seconds. The brainchild of former Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies, the third-person action-adventure follows Jacob Diaz, a soldier with a neural implant, uncovering forgotten secrets in the desert metropolis of Redrock based loosely on Las Vegas. While it flirts with open-world design, the experience is more like a “faux-pen” world – linear at its core, just dressed up to look expansive.

Early trailers promised polished gameplay and a sprawling cityscape, positioning MindsEye as a sleek, cinematic contender in the crime-action genre and potential GTA killer. With Benzies manning the director’s chair, expectations soared.

This is what we were promised (above). This video review and the clips that follow is what we got.

Reality hit hard. After launch, players flooded forums and social media with reports of glaring issues and meme-worthy clips: glitched facial animations, non-player characters acting erratically or freezing completely, game crashes, and poor optimization that tanked performance across all platforms. The official Discord even disabled emoji reactions to stem the rising tide of negativity.

Steam reviews are hovering around 60 percent negative. Many players have demanded refunds, frustrated that a $60-$80 game with such high-profile backing feels rushed and unfinished. In a rare public update, Build A Rocket Boy acknowledged the issues and promised that the upcoming “Update 3” would deliver performance improvements, especially on consoles. Some players – once enthusiastic – are now cautiously optimistic that patches might turn MindsEye around.

I’ll just leave this here pic.twitter.com/mB2T8LMtwC

– Maggie (@MyRetroReplays) June 11, 2025

While the promise of patches might ease some backlash, the studio’s co-CEO Mark Gerhard deflected blame onto social media bots – allegedly hired by Rockstar Games – for the pre-launch wave of criticism. It’s a familiar dodge in an industry that has grown increasingly comfortable with shipping half-finished products and pointing fingers when things go wrong.

Yeah, Mindseye definitely needed a delay… pic.twitter.com/mhBNkvMN2f

– NikTek (@NikTekOfficial) June 10, 2025

Build A Rocket Boy’s Chief Legal Officer Riley Graebner and Chief Financial Officer Paul Bland announced their departures on LinkedIn just days before the launch. While their parting words were kind, the timing suggests potential internal turmoil over the game’s readiness. Whether those exits were in protest or a preemptive move to distance themselves from the fallout remains unclear. Unsurprisingly, in hindsight, the studio also withheld advance review copies – a decision that fueled suspicion and left players blindsided when MindsEye launched in such a broken state.

Maybe Gerhard still has a chance to salvage his baby from the dumpster fire. No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 managed full-scale rebounds. However, his vision of an ongoing episodic adventure or “Roblox-like” experience is likely off the table. Even if MindsEye gets fixed, players will likely think twice before investing in future episodes. Although, who knows? A Roblox-like community of modders could actually salvage the game.

The following article is an op-ed by Debra Nita, Associate Director, Head of Growth at YAP Global.

The next crypto breakthrough won’t come from a whitepaper or promises to “revolutionize finance.” It will emerge from something simpler, more human. Like NFTs, gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi) took off in retail popularity in 2021-22, the current bull market is waiting for new killer apps to emerge.

Despite being seen as frivolous, memecoins are a prime example of a killer crypto app, and they reveal a blueprint ignored by “serious” crypto initiatives. This was evident in recently popular tokens like $TRUMP and $MELANIA. A survey found that 14% of Americans – one in seven – invested in $TRUMP. This isn’t just speculation – it’s mass onboarding.

The killer use cases that drive retail adoption aren’t about solving the most complex problems. Instead, they tap into universal human emotions and habits. These should be guiding principles for projects that aim to become the next killer crypto app. 

Forget Utility, Think Social Phenomenon 

The most popular crypto use cases always transcended their technical origins to become cultural phenomena. Bitcoin started as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system but later grew in the public’s imagination as a symbol of financial sovereignty and rebellion against traditional systems.

The $TRUMP and $MELANIA crypto tokens show how Donald and Melania Trump become cultural icons beyond politics. Chainalysis revealed that 50% of $TRUMP and/ or $MELANIA token holders had never bought a Solana altcoin before, and 83% of users held less than $1,000 in Solana assets. These tokens essentially attracted a large group of retail users into the world of crypto for the first time, on the back of Trump and Melania’s popularity.

The industry has promising killer apps on its horizon. The TON and Telegram combo show signs of promise due to their social relatability. Leveraging their mobile-first, social ecosystem to transform mini-apps (particularly GameFi ones), they have garnered some success in blending Web2 usability with Web3 utility. While the current TON gaming apps may be critiqued for simplicity, Telegram’s distribution (950M+ users) offers a viral launchpad if developers prioritize emotional engagement alongside token rewards. 

If TON and Telegram can tap into the emotional architecture that makes gold-standard games like Grand Theft Auto a social phenomenon, they could easily become crypto’s next killer use case. 

Likewise, founders building retail apps should ask themselves “Can what we’re building galvanize a large group of users to rally behind it?” and “What about our project could make it a household name, and excite every user to share it with their friends?”

So Easy Grandma Would Understand

A killer use case is intuitive and easy to use. Buying $TRUMP doesn’t require understanding smart contracts, liquidity pools, or consensus mechanisms. It’s as simple as downloading a wallet, swapping some SOL, and joining in the fun. This low barrier to entry is crucial for retail adoption. 

During the 2024 U.S. presidential race, Polymarket – a prediction market where people bet on real-world events, like guessing who will win an election – exploded in popularity. Nearly 1 million new users could easily join as the steps to participate were straightforward – download the app, sign up with Google, deposit USDC through an exchange, and bet on a question (e.g., “Will Candidate X win?”). 

This simplicity reflects a growing trend in crypto: starting with the end-user experience rather than letting infrastructure dictate the experience. 

We’re seeing this shift toward simplicity through projects like Base and Hyperliquid. Messari’s Annual Crypto Theses 2025 report showed that Base (built by Coinbase) simplified moving funds from exchanges to blockchains with one-click functionality, onboarding millions. Similarly, Hyperliquid’s perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) saw massive traction by simulating the trading experience of leading centralized exchanges (CEX) like Binance – user-friendly and cost-efficient while ensuring asset ownership. 

While CEXes were a crucial onboarding vehicle in the last bull run due to the ease of converting fiat into crypto, DEXes could see an explosion in popularity this cycle. With seamless on-ramping improving in 2025, decentralization through onchain trading could become even more mainstream due to its increasing ease of use.

The Bigger, the Better 

Network effects drive exponential value in platforms where utility increases with each new participant. Bitcoin’s strength as a store of value and medium of exchange grows with each new adopter.

The memecoin sector’s explosive growth from $20 billion to $120 billion in 2024 validates this thesis. As more users join ($TRUMP had 11 billion at its highest, becoming the 14th-largest by market capitalization within the crypto sector), the network becomes more valuable, attracting more participants – creating a powerful feedback loop of growth and cultural relevance.

Looking ahead, stablecoins are changing the payments industry by offering cheaper, faster, and more accessible solutions to traditional centralized payment systems. In 2024 alone, over 28.5 million users completed 600 million stablecoin transactions, showing their global adoption.

A key driver of this adoption could be US interest in maintaining Dollar dominance through USD-denominated stablecoins. A recent executive order by the Trump administration prohibits the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the U.S., positioning Dollar-backed stablecoins as the primary digital representation of the U.S. dollar. 

Stablecoins could be the next killer crypto app due to their network efforts. The more they are used for payments, the more they will be used. Stablecoins could become the primary choice for the digital Dollar, transforming the financial landscape while anchoring US economic influence.

The Blueprint for Retail Adoption

Challenges remain including regulatory uncertainty and lack of implementation of policies, technological complexities in scaling, and an existing gap in the social legitimacy of crypto. 

Despite these challenges, projects should focus on the human element – designing experiences that make users feel like a part of a cultural phenomenon, have simplicity at their core, and emphasize the creation of network effects. Retail projects that succeed in this bull run will be the ones that understand and implement this blueprint.

Mentioned in this article

The chief executive of market intelligence firm CryptoQuant is identifying a “killer” future use case for crypto assets.

In a new thread, Ki Young Ju tells his 402,000 followers on the social media platform X that the political process will eventually become tokenized due to its narrative-driven nature.

According to Ki, the way digital assets are designed makes them a perfect fit for politics, noting that Trump’s crypto asset Official Trump (TRUMP) – which launched last month – is just the start.

“PoliFi will be crypto’s killer use case.

A strong crypto asset attracts capital and talent through a compelling narrative, forming a self-building internet organization.

A narrative gains strength when it: 1) Resonates with the majority. 2) Features extreme, provocative themes. 3) Sparks divisive debate.

Politics checks all three boxes – it’s widely relatable, provocative, and inherently polarizing. Political parties should issue their own coins. Members would invest, fostering belonging, while the free market quantifies public sentiment.

Given their built-in narratives, these communities would be self-sustaining and highly engaged. Imagine the Republican and Democratic parties launching official PoliFi coins. Imagine ETFs (exchange-traded funds) tracking politician-backed tokens. Trump Coin is just the beginning.”

TRUMP is trading for $17.39 at time of writing, a fractional increase on the day.

Ki goes on to note that a “selective” altcoin season is here, meaning that altcoins from certain groups are managing to stay afloat amid uncertain market conditions.

“‘Only a few altcoins have a high correlation to Bitcoin right now. Infra coins like Ethereum are sluggish, while those tied to institutional adoption, stablecoins, and memes have survived.”

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Moksha Labs/Natalia Siiatovskaia